The 10 Dishes That Made My Career: Ken Oringer of Toro

Ken Oringer was barely six years old when he first hatched the dream of becoming a chef. “I would watch Julia Child and the Galloping Gourmet, and later read cookbooks religiously. I grew up in New Jersey, so we’d go to street fairs, visit Chinatown and Little Italy in New York, and I’d see lambs cooking on spits. My parents encouraged me in the kitchen. First there were roast chickens and beef stews, then consommé,” he says.

That PBS-fueled childhood served as the impetus that propelled the young, ambitious cook through the Culinary Institute of America and onto the opening of first restaurant in 1997: the tony French-American Clio, inside Boston’s equally swanky Eliot Hotel. Before that, Oringer had cut his teeth as a pastry chef at the celebrated Al Forno in Providence, RI, and worked for David Burke at the River Café in Brooklyn, as well as the new-to-the-U.S. Jean-Georges Vongerichten at Le Marquis de Lafayette in Boston. After a run as chef de cuisine at Silks, at the Mandarin Oriental hotel, in San Francisco, he was ready to make his mark as executive chef in the city he loved.

“I just wanted to open a restaurant, and hoped it did well,” says Oringer, who admits he never anticipated the success of his small—and growing—empire of Beantown restaurants. “Todd English and Jody Adams had paved the way in Boston, but their food was rustic, and I wanted to do something lighter, a little more fine dining. The timing was right.”

Since then, Oringer has demonstrated an on-the-money knack for timing. Following Clio, he unveiled sashimi bar Uni, tapas restaurant Toro, Mexican taqueria La Verdad, and the enoteca Coppa—in partnership with chef Jamie Bissonnette—which all remain Boston hot spots. Organic restaurant Earth at Hidden Pond opened in Kennebunkport, ME, in 2011, and now Oringer has his hands full at the second Toro outpost that he just debuted with Bissonnette in New York.

Every night, the bustling South Chelsea restaurant is packed with young, sherry-swilling diners clamoring to eat their $76 paella Valenciana at the exhibitionist chef’s counter. “It’s been pretty wild. We never thought we’d be this busy this quickly; maybe 100 people a night until word got out. But we’ve had amazing support being in the same building as Colicchio & Sons and Del Posto. Jonathan Waxman, David Chang, and Jean-Georges have all come in and given advice,” Oringer says.

At Toro, New Yorkers may first be making the acquaintance of the James Beard Award-winning Oringer, but in Boston, where his restaurants have significantly helped transform the city’s culinary scene, his roots run deep. In the 16 years since Clio has opened, Oringer has seen “dramatic” changes. “On any given night you can go out for Szechuan, Sri Lankan, or Malaysian now. Between what Barbara Lynch, Tony Maws, Ming Tsai, and Ana Sortun have done, I’d put this city up against any other,” he says.

Oringer’s passionate cooking pays homage to the vast international influences he has encountered on myriad travels. Here are the 10 of the dishes that have inspired him to take on so many diverse, soulful cuisines.

Gargouillou at Restaurant Bras

Michel Bras’ gargouillou is a dish I’ve eaten three or four times. It’s a study on vegetables. Every one is cooked differently—different shapes, different textures—combined with a bit of country ham and garden herbs, and brought together in a composition that is the most incredible thing I’ve ever put in my mouth. It showed me how delicious you can make vegetables so they’re not an afterthought, and changed the way I view their importance and flexibility.

Live seafood at Tsukiji Fish Market

Fifteen years ago I took my first trip to Tokyo. I went to Tsukiji Fish Market at 4am with my brother, and we wandered around for hours and hours, blown away by the variety, quality, and craftsmanship, and the pride the Japanese have for fish. Randomly picking different stalls and eating live urchin and geoduck clams, we realized everything was the best of the best. It motivated me when I came back home. I always had a love for Japanese ingredients and the Japanese aesthetic, but this pushed me in the direction of saying, "You know what? I’m going to open a funky sushi bar where it’s all sashimi, fresh fish not hiding behind any rice." That meal led to opening Uni.

Á la plancha dishes in Spain

In Barcelona, Cal Pep is known for seafood-driven cooking on the plancha, and Ganbara, a tapas restaurant in San Sebastián, makes wild mushrooms on the plancha. Everything I ate at those places, from razor clams to octopus, put me in a mindset that inspired the opening of Toro. All the fun, camaraderie, and sharing of dishes made in the open showed me how transparent cooking could be.

Mom's roast chicken

My mom’s roast chicken is something I always craved as a kid, and I still consider it one of my favorite comfort foods—whether in Paris or Boston. Anytime I see the word rotisserie it brings back memories of devouring the skin, the smells of my childhood, and my mom making it, stuffing it with lemon and herbs. She served it simply with roasted potatoes or caramelized carrots from the roasting pan. It inspired me to put carrots on the plancha with buttermilk, dill, and harissa in Toro New York.

Zucchini juice at Le Marquis de Lafayette (Boston, MA)

A long time ago I cooked at Le Marquis de Lafayette, in Boston, when Jean-Georges Vongerichten was a young chef fresh from Asia. This was just prior to him moving to Lafayette in New York. Back in the day, Jean-Georges was the first person to use infused vegetable juices. We had this dish, a lamb saddle with zucchini juice, where we made cannelloni with braised lamb shoulder wrapped in wanton skins with aged goat cheese. The green zucchini sauce was infused with thyme and cardamom, and I just remember the balance: both French and Asian, light and intense.

Grilled pizza at Al Forno (Providence, RI)

To this day, the pizza at Al Forno is the best I’ve ever had because of its simplicity. It’s primitive: You push out of a piece of dough, rustic and freeform, and cook it on real charcoal and real wood, for three or four minutes from start to finish. It’s crunchy and you can taste the fire. We don’t serve pizza at Coppa, but we have a wood oven inspired by similar flavors.

Larb in Thailand

I spent a lot of time in Asia when I was a younger chef, and eating larb on the streets of Bangkok and Chiang Mai, I was blown away by the combination of sweet, sour, salty, bitter, and spicy. The aromatics of mint, Thai basil, and smoky ground rice powder paired with palm sugar, Thai chilies, fried garlic, and lime were mind-boggling. So many different fireworks in one bite increased my sensibility of umami.

Uni Spoon at Uni (Boston, MA)

I like to go for a wow factor with certain dishes so they become a conversation piece. I make the uni spoon at Uni, and now do a variation of it at Toro. It combines a few of my favorite foods into one luxurious and interesting bite: Osetra caviar, fresh sea urchin, and a quail egg yolk seasoned with yuzu juice and soy sauce served with chives. I instruct people to eat it like an oyster and chew everything together.

Cassolette of Sea Urchin and Lobster at Clio (Boston, MA)

I’ve had the cassolette of lobster and sea urchin on the menu at Clio for 14 years, and I consider it one of my signature dishes. Parsnip-infused milk with honey is the base, there are anchovies for silkiness, jalapeño for heat, candied lemon, Espelette pepper, and it’s finished with a bit of fried shallots. It has the sweet, salty, iodine flavor of sea urchin, but it’s inspired by classic Boston chowder.

Amuse-bouche at El Bulli (Spain)

It was the amuse-bouche courses at El Bulli—artichoke lollipops, dehydrated cèpes covered in cèpe powder, caviar and quail eggs wrapped in croquantes of sugar—that showed me how to have fun with food. Instead of a demitasse cup, these were interesting, creative dishes, 20 different things to pop into your mouth that proved finger food could be served in a fine-dining restaurant. The same kind of playfulness first hit home for me when I worked with David Burke at the River Café.

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